


Teen Love Is Like A Llama

by Sophie



Category: Hero - Perry Moore
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 08:25:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophie/pseuds/Sophie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It can be really awkward to be living with your boyfriend and (kind of, maybe) raising a kid while being a famous teenage superhero still going to high school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teen Love Is Like A Llama

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mayachain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! Your request was left wide open so I hope you like what I decided to do with it. I certainly enjoyed writing Thom; he is kind of incredible in all of his awkwardness.
> 
> Warning for a character who drinks while pregnant.
> 
> Thanks to [Tali](http://archiveofourown.org/users/inabathrobe) for the beta.

I wanted to go back and finish high school, go to college, the whole normal shebang, even after the thing with Justice. Maybe even more than ever since the thing with Justice because, as a permanent reserve member of the League, I was getting paid. Actual money. A whole lot of actual money, even if I wasn't working nearly as much as others did. That meant that the main problem I had faced before when I was wondering if I could go to college —whether Dad and I could afford something like that— was gone.

I still wasn't the most field-oriented guy in the League by a long shot, and they all knew it, so I wasn't getting any calls when trains derailed. But when I did receive calls —not through a ring anymore; rings were taboo at this point; the League just gave us all some really high-tech phones that would never run out of battery power— I knew I really had to move my ass and answer right away. I received calls when someone was dying and they weren't sure they could save them. I had never thought about it before, but healing wasn't that common a power. More specifically, the League had no healer other than me.

Mystic M could perform a form of healing magic, but I remembered that once, during an interview, he'd been asked why so many League superheroes were recuperating from injuries all the time if he could just heal them. “It doesn't work that way,” he had answered. He'd looked uncomfortable and annoyed. “Healing is the strongest magic one can perform, and it drains me. Healing someone from severe wounds would put me out of commission for a week, and healing a fatal wound could kill me. Plainly put, the cost of that sort of spell is very rarely worth it.”

It wasn't that way with me, and the only way to put me out of commission was for me to... well, to heal thousands of people, hold an eighty-story-high building up with the energy, recompose a dead friend so we could have a body to bury, and then heal another friend's cancer, all in the span of a few hours. None of which Mystic M could do.

So I was the only healer the League could use on a regular basis, and as far as I knew, I was the only healer in the world. That was the new problem about my grand plans to be a normal teenager in college. _I was the only healer in the world_. Even if I went ahead and managed to go to undergrad, maybe even eventually get a graduate degree, what was I supposed to do with them? Have a normal job that I liked? That would work for about a minute and then I would feel guilty that I wasn't using my powers in a more responsible, useful way.

“I should look up how to work in a hospital,” I told Goran one day over lunch. I was starting my senior year in a few weeks and felt pressured to make some life decisions. “I'm never going to be an actual doctor, but... but I don't think that's going to be that much of a problem? Maybe if I go through the government somehow and—”

“No,” Goran said decisively, and he sounded angry enough that his little brother looked up from his plate, worried.

I looked at him, too, too surprised to speak right away. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, I swallowed.

“No?” I asked, dragging the syllable hesitantly. I never thought Goran would be against me doing something useful with my powers. Being confused didn't even begin to cover it.

Goran stared at me without answering, and then looked at the time on his watch. “Come on,” he said to Andro as he stood up. “We need to get you to your karate class.”

Now I was hurt. They still had a good fifteen minutes before they were even close to being strapped in time, and Goran was avoiding the topic without even giving me any sort of explanation.

“What? Goran! ...What?”

He shook his head. “Later,” he said, and that was the end of the conversation. He left with Andro, and I didn't want to stay home and wait for them to come back, wondering what was up with Goran and worrying that I'd done something stupid, so I took the bus to Scarlett and Kevin's place. I still didn't have my stupid driver's license back, even though we now knew my powers used to be the trigger for the seizures; I had been told that I was going to have to abide the same rules as everyone one else and wait for the required time to have passed without seizures before I could get it back.

Scarlett looked amazing, and pregnancy really fit her. Of course, I didn't live with her, and I never would have told this to Kevin, who looked like he was walking on eggshells every time he opened his mouth around his girlfriend.

“I think Goran's mad at me.”

“Ah, Christ, are you seriously going to come and see me only if you wanna complain about your domestic life?” She didn't sound like she really was mad or anything, and she was smiling. “Who did you complain to before we were friends?”

“Huh...” I was going to say that I didn't have much of a domestic life before, but that wasn't true. It just wasn't with Goran. “I didn't—” I looked away. “Ruth, I guess.” In a way, anyway.

A month ago, Scarlett's face would have darkened, but we all knew Ruth wouldn't have wanted us to grieve over her for months and avoid talking about her in the process. Ruth would have wanted us to talk about her non-stop and remember all the good things.

“Hah! And, by that, you mean she told you to stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself before you'd even opened your mouth, don't you?”

Not _exactly_ , but this was dangerously close to the truth, so I didn't answer.

“All right,” said Scarlett, leaning back against the sofa where she was sitting and putting a hand on her stomach. “What did you do?”

“Nothing. I think.”

Scarlett rolled her eyes. “Oh my god, Thom. You are so useless. Then detail to me what happened between the moment you thought Goran wasn't mad at you and the moment you thought he was.”

“I, huh, I told him that maybe I'd want to work in a hospital at some point?” That really was the only thing I'd done, and I figured Scarlett would be just as lost as I was.

She flinched and looked very close to being horrified by the suggestion. “Holy shit! What? In what world did you think that would be a good idea? Honestly, Thom!”

That's when I started to feel like an idiot, because clearly everyone I cared about thought this was the worst idea they had ever heard and I still had no idea why. The biggest idiot is the guy who doesn't know he's an idiot.

It must have showed on my face because Scarlett sighed.

“Okay. Right. You live in a perfect world made up of perfect people. Thom, I know you cured my cancer and all, and I'm really glad about it, okay. It was the best thing to ever happen to me. But you seriously can't go around curing anyone else's cancer. Like. Ever. Except if they're willing to never tell anyone ever like me.”

“Why?”

She raked her hand through her hair. “Have you ever noticed that the news coverage never talked about how so many kids were healed during the Wrecking Balls thing? Or how— well, how you’ve healed anyone ever, actually?” She paused, and my eyes widened. “Oh, of course, you never did. Well, the League is hiding that those were all on purpose. To a point,” she added, smiling, and I could feel myself flushing. My powers were mostly under control now, but the Wrecking Balls fight was always going to make me feel bad.

“Anyway, they're keeping it under wraps that you can _do_ any of this, and trust me, it's not easy.” She kept on going, “The public can't know that you can cure freaking _cancer_ because, the minute you're out, you're gonna be whisked away by the government like a fucking national treasure. And that's only if a villain doesn’t manage to snag you first. You don't even have a secret identity for Christ’s sake! Goran must already be stressing out _enough_ about his safety as it is, and people only think that you have superspeed and superstrength and that you can kind of give superstrength to other people when you're freaking out. Not to mention a truly amazing amount of dumb luck.”

I couldn't tell her that Goran probably wasn't worried about his safety because he was Dark Hero, but it still made sense. Goran had a secret identity because he had a little brother to protect, and I'd just kind of ruined that for him when we'd all moved in together, hadn't I? I'd never even thought about it, about how much Goran was possibly sacrificing to make this thing between us work. I felt extremely selfish, for a moment.

“Oh.” I said simply. It made Scarlett chuckle.

“Yes,” she said, “ _oh_.”

“Wow. I— Wow. That explains so much,” I said, frowning. It was easier for the League to always call me to headquarters to heal people, instead of sending me into the field; it probably wasn't all about not being that efficient in combat situations.

“I can't believe you actually needed someone to spell this out for you,” Scarlett said, her tone a bit mocking. “No, strike that. I can totally believe it. It fits you completely.”

“Yeah. Well. Thanks.”

I stayed at her place and helped Kevin out with the dinner and then stayed to eat it, but when Scarlett got a beer out, I mentioned that she was pregnant, and she gave me a five-minute speech on how one occasional beer because she had guests over wasn't going to fuck anything up and that our parents all drank and smoked and we were all _fine_ , and when I looked over at Kevin, his face told me that he'd tried talking to Scarlett about it in the past and had learned to shut up.

I learned to shut up, too.

*

When I got back home, Andro was watching TV and Goran was washing the dishes. There was some pasta left, and I blushed when I realized I hadn't called and the extra food was probably for me.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” Goran said and turned to kiss me quickly on the mouth. The kiss allowed me to breathe, relieved that he apparently wasn't incredibly angry at me.

“I was at Scarlett's. I should have called.”

He nodded. “Did you have a good time?”

“Sure. I'd say being pregnant made her cranky, but she already was.”

The corner of Goran's lips twitched up in a quick smile, and I grinned in answer.

“You could have just told me that you didn't want the government whisking me away if they learned about my powers, you know,” I said slowly.

“Yes,” he agreed, searching for his words. “I don't like talking about superpowers and superheroes in front of Andro. Even if he knows about you. It's... a habit.”

And I was back to being lost, which was a feeling I should have been used to by then. I frowned. “Why?”

Goran stopped doing the dishes and turned to look at me. “I don't want Andro to know about me,” he said, lowering his voice.

“Uh. Goran. Your brother knows you're a superhero.”

Goran looked shocked, an expression I'd never seen on his face before. “No.”

“Yes?”

“Did you tell him?”

“What? No! Of course not! I wouldn't! Before I knew you were Dark Hero, I talked to him once, and he told me he wanted to be a hero like you when he grew up. It didn't make any sense at the time, but then...”

“He—” Goran glanced at his brother in the living room, and I couldn't tell what was going through his head. “Can you finish the dishes?” he asked. “I'll go talk to him.”

I nodded, even though I was dead curious and wished I could be part of that conversation, but I understood if Goran wanted it to be more of a private discussion. When I was done, I checked on them, and they were still talking quietly in Croatian. It looked more serious than just 'I didn't know you knew about me being Dark Hero; do you have any question about that?', so I let them be and went to Goran and my room to pass some time playing inane games on my laptop —the laptop Dad had given me when he'd gotten his promotion.

After the battle against Justice, after my dad's death, I couldn't live in our house anymore. Because I wasn't very far from my eighteenth birthday and because the League put in a good word for me, I didn't have any legal problems about having the ownership of the house, selling it and being considered an adult for all means and purposes. Goran already had a place with his brother and I agreed when he suggested I moved in with them.

Then, I realized how really weird it was to live with your boyfriend of less than a month and his brother, who he was taking care of, even though he was only two years older than me. It was so official and decisive, like we had just gotten married or something, and we shared a room. And a bed. We shared a room and a bed, and all we had done was _kiss_. It never seemed to bother Goran, but I spent the first week feeling guilty (and knowing I really shouldn’t) because I wasn't putting out and we’d still only made out. I'd wake up with a hard-on and go take care of it in the bathroom because Goran and I were not there yet, even if we lived together. We were doing things in the wrong order, and I didn't know how to deal with it.

Somehow, it became a lot more comfortable to live together and sleep in the same bed after we had sex the first time. And, by that, I mean that we gave each other a hand job, but still. We went slow and got naked together and it felt just as intimate as it would have been if we'd had oral sex or, well, if we'd gone all the way.

We were still going slow and hadn't gone past hand jobs, but I wasn't uncomfortable and mortified when we did that anymore, and things were great. Really great. We didn't want to kill each other or take a break because we'd gone too fast and it had turned out it wasn't going to work after all, and I still had butterflies in my stomach whenever I looked at Goran. It was my first relationship, but I felt more and more like this could be _it_ , which was ridiculous because I was seventeen and had been with Goran for two months.

I was on my third game of Bejeweled when Goran slipped inside our room so silently that I wouldn't have noticed him if I hadn't been facing the door. I looked up at him expectantly, not knowing what to say and not wanting to say, “Hey,” which was the only thing I could think of.

“You could have joined the conversation.”

“You weren't exactly speaking English,” I answered after a small silence. He cocked his head to the side as if to say, “Ah, yes, true,” and didn't answer.

“So. Uhm. Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Goran said. “He's known... he's known for a while. I should have figured out that he knew, but I think I liked believing that he didn't remember any of what I did during the war.”

I was obviously missing big chunks of information, here, but I didn't want to press. I figured if Goran wanted to talk about it, he would.

He didn't.

*

Sometimes, I forgot that I was famous. People would stop me in the streets to shake my hand and thank me or just to exclaim that they knew who I was, so that was a good constant reminder. I think I scared people, or at least I had everyone's relative respect, because no one had been shouting anything homophobic in my direction since the fight against Justice, which was nice. But it was all abstract in a way.

The first day of my senior year, all the abstract melted away when I realized that every single teenager I would spend the rest of the year with knew who I was. It was a new school because I had moved and my local school had changed in the process. I could have stayed at my old school if I had wanted to, but I wasn't attached enough to the school or any student there to want to. I was used to not having many friends, especially since the basketball team had abandoned me after the Gary Coleman lookalike had outed me. Suddenly, every single student in the vicinity wanted to talk to me or to look and point from afar. That's when I discovered that I _liked_ being a loner, something I had complained about repeatedly in the past.

Every single teacher started their class with a speech about how important that year was and how we'd have to start applying to college soon if we hadn't already —if we wanted to go to college, that is. It was pretty clear what they thought of any student who wasn’t applying, though. They might as well have just said, “You better at least try to go to college because what are you going to do with a high school diploma? Work at Walmart?”

It made me uncomfortable in part because I didn't know if I was going to college, but also because of everyone in the class who I knew would want to go, but couldn't even afford community college. That kind of speech just twisted the knife. And then I thought about Goran who wasn't going to college, who was just done with school and was working full time, and I'd never _talked_ to him about if he had wanted to go. Was he doing this because he wanted to take care of his little brother? Because if it was a money thing, my League salary would cover everything we might need without any trouble...

Wow, I was such a bad boyfriend. How could I have just spent half the summer thinking about what _I_ was going to do about my education and never even wondered what Goran was doing with his?

I wanted to talk about it with Goran right away but he was starting work around then and I thought it would probably be tacky to call him at the beginning of his shift during my lunch hour to ask him if he really did like his job or if he just felt obligated to go every day.

Goran worked from noon to eight now. He had worked during the day at the beginning of the summer, and then had taken up a night shift for a few months: six to two. He'd hated that shift for the few months he'd had it because it gave him next to no time to go out as Dark Hero, but someone else with more seniority had snagged the day shifts, and he couldn't take the evening shift and risk not being able to switch it when school started and leave Andro to come back from school by himself. He'd finally told me all of this when I mentioned that it couldn't be awesome for him to finish working at two in the morning and only go out a few hours every night. I'd told him I could pick up Andro at his school when summer would be over and that he should take the evening shift if he wanted to.

Andro also started school that day, and without a car, I had to take the bus to get to his school, but then we could walk to the apartment in less than ten minutes. I was pretty sure Goran had chosen a place for them based on how close it was to the local schools. I'd never gone to Andro's school and felt really out of place picking him up. I'd need to get over it.

I looked really hesitant and lost when I walked in the middle school, and the man at the reception took pity on me, looking up from his desk. “Can I help you?” he asked with a smile.

“Ah. Yes? I'm here to pick up Andro? Uh. Andro Marković. He's in sixth grade.”

The smile on the man's face never faltered. “Are you his brother?”

“Uh, no,” I answered, shaking my head and wondering if I was supposed to have some sort of permission from Goran for this. I was suddenly worried that I was going to fail at bringing Andro home his very first day of school. “His brother works from noon to eight.”

“Do you have any authorization from Andro's parents to pick him up, then?”

That made me really uncomfortable, and I swallowed. Shouldn't people working at schools have a list of students without parents that they could memorize or at least look at to avoid asking sensitive questions like this. “They're dead,” I answered simply without thinking about how to expose the fact more tactfully.

The smile definitely faltered then, and the man seemed at a loss.

“I live with them, though. With Andro and his brother?” I offered, not sure what to do myself.

A woman walked in then, talking quickly, “Peter Garcia's parents just called—” We never found out what Peter Garcia's parents wanted because the woman stopped in the middle of her sentence and stared at me, her eyes going wide. “Oh my god, you're _Thom Creed_.”

I could see the man's expression change into a look of realization as if he'd been trying to figure out where he'd seen me before, but hadn't been able to figure it out.

I stared back at her and tried smiling. I used way too many teeth. Maybe, I could practice smiling in front of a mirror for all the times when I needed to smile to strangers.

“Yes.”

Confirming it only made her become frantic. “Oh my god! Oh my _god_. I was— You were— At the tower when the billboard— I thought for sure we'd all be crushed.” She was grinning now. “I was probably the only person who wasn't a medic in that circle.”

“ _Oh!_ I'm sorry, I don't remember your face,” I said, wincing a little.

She laughed. “That's okay. You probably don't remember many faces from that day.” I nodded. She seemed satisfied with that. “So what are you doing here?”

Right. That. “I'm here to pick up Andro Marković, but I'm not family and—”

She stopped me, raising her hand. “That's fine. We all know who _you_ are. I'm pretty sure you won't be kidnapping anyone,” she said with a wink, and I thought that was rather big of her because I knew plenty of (very stupid, hateful) people would never have let me leave with a kid because of the gay thing.

She looked at the man at reception, and I couldn't see her expression, but it made him pick up a phone to call Andro from wherever he was.

“Are you the school's principal?” I asked her when it hit me that the man acted in that politely afraid way you acted with your boss.

“Yes, Ms. Williams.” She extended his hand, and I shook it.

“Hi. Uh... you already know my name.” It made her laugh again. She was a bit nervous but genuinely glad to meet me. She was starstruck, I realized after a moment. I didn't know what to make of it. I think she liked that I was so awkward and normal, too.

“Are we going to see you every day, then?”

“For a while, at least. Andro's brother works too late to pick him up.”

She nodded and didn't ask about their parents. Maybe, the principal had that list of students without parents. “So you know Andro's brother?”

She was making small talk, and I was getting a bit anxious, wanting Andro to be there already. She wasn't annoying and I liked her, but... I had saved her life. Somehow, it made the situation weird and hard to handle.

“We all live in the same apartment. I'm their roommate.”

I was afraid she'd keep asking questions on our living situation and I'd end up blushing and acting like an idiot, but Andro appeared in the lobby, his backpack definitely fuller than it had been that morning. He smiled at me and waved.

“Hey.” I grinned. “Do you have everything?”

“Yes. I need to cover some textbooks tonight, but I don't have any homework.”

“We'll do that.” I glanced at Ms. Williams. “It was nice meeting you.”

“The pleasure was all mine, really.”

I was glad when we walked out of the school.

I helped Andro cover his books when we got home. He did most of the work while I played cheerleader, telling him he was doing a good job every so often. I cooked dinner after that, leaving a plate aside in the fridge for Goran when he came home, and Andro and I ate while he told me about his new school and how he had more than one teacher now and which teachers he liked and which ones he didn't. It was a good thing that Andro was feeling like talking because I wouldn't have known what to ask him if he hadn't volunteered topics and eating in silence with an eleven-year-old would have been a bit sad.

I wondered if Andro was disappointed that he wasn't spending time with Goran instead, if he wouldn't have preferred to cover his books while Goran watched over him, but I couldn't bring myself to ask him something like that. He didn't seem to dislike me, which was already a miracle.

Goran walked through the door at eight thirty, and Andro was already in his pyjamas, watching TV. Andro stood up from the couch and ran over to Goran, who ruffled his hair.

“Hey you. How was your first day of middle school?”

“I told Thom already!” Andro answered.

“You did, didn't you? But _I_ want to know, too.”

They kept on talking, but I was frozen. I had stopped breathing for a few seconds, startled, and now I felt horrible. Goran didn't sound mad or even disappointed, but I couldn't do this. I couldn't be the one to pick up Andro every evening and help him with his homework and eat alone with him and get to hear all about his life while his older brother was working. How could I have ever thought that was a good idea? Why had Goran let me do this? He must have known what was going to happen!

Andro brushed his teeth and went to bed at nine, and Goran ate and asked if I wanted to play GoldenEye 007 with him. What I wanted to do was talk to him about his job and why he wasn't in college and how inadequate I felt about spending more time with his brother than he did. I didn't know how to bring it up, though, so I said yes and started an impressive losing streak. I would have lost all the games no matter what we were playing. I had never had a video game console in my life, and Goran had one because he had an eleven-year-old little brother that he wanted to make happy more than anything in the world. Somehow, that had detoured into buying him a Nintendo 64 at some point and then playing with him as often as Andro wanted.

I had yawned three times in the last minute when Goran put down his controller.

“You should go to sleep.”

“You just want to go out already,” I answered, teasing and glancing at the time. A bit after eleven o'clock. Goran was right and he knew it, so he didn't say anything and stared at me until I got up and went to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. When I walked out, Goran had turned off the TV and was in our bedroom in his full Dark Hero attire. It always did something to me to see him in costume, but I was ignoring it decisively.

“So, uh, good night. Be careful.”

Goran raised a hand to his face to pull down his mask and uncover his mouth. I thought he was going to say something, but instead he reached over to me, grabbing my hand with his gloved one, and pulled me to him to press his lips against my own. Pretending I wasn't turned on by Goran in costume was a lot harder when he had his tongue in my mouth and a hand in my hair.

And then it was over. Goran smiled and put his mask back over his mouth and stepped into the shadows before vanishing. I sat on the bed for a few seconds and then let myself fall back on the mattress, groaning. I hadn't even managed to make myself talk to him all night. Nice job, Thom, nice job.

I undressed to my boxers and slipped under the blanket. I thought I'd have a hard time falling asleep, but I was out less than a minute after I closed my eyes.

*

It was dumb luck that I woke when Goran came back, and then we were both half naked in bed, and he smelled of leather and sweat. One thing lead to another and, half an hour later, I was holding him tightly over me, breathing loud and fast.

“Don't move. Wait a bit,” I mumbled.

Goran nodded and held me closer against him. I didn't move for a while, just really happy and contented and not caring that holding onto each other with sperm in between us was possibly not very sexy. When my breathing was nearly back to normal, I loosened my hold and pulled my head far enough back that I could see Goran if I squinted a little; it was still pretty dark.

“Hey,” I said, smiling, and then didn't hit myself on the head for saying hi to someone in bed after sex like an idiot. “Hmm. One day, we could bring a towel in here.”

Goran snorted quietly. “That sounds like a good idea,” he said, running a hand along the curve of my cheek.

“I can hear you mocking my incredible conversation skills.” I smiled and leaned into the movement of Goran's hand. “Uhm... you're a bit heavy. Not that I mind that much, I like you on top of me – uuuuh. Wow. Can I blame everything I'm saying on incredible sex? Please?”

Goran laughed, but he wasn't mocking me and it made me smile, and he propped himself up on his elbows to take part of his weight would be off me.

“Alright,” he said kind of smugly before he rolled onto his back. I pushed myself up on an elbow and leaned over Goran to kiss him a few times, still smiling, before reaching for the kleenex box again. I swiped most of the come off myself and handed the box over to Goran before lying on my back.

“We have to wake up in three hours,” I said, glancing at Goran as he cleaned himself up.

He stayed silent, looking at me and probably noticing how much I wasn't closing my eyes or lying down under the covers.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. That was a very good opening. An excellent opening, in fact. If only I could make myself take it. Instead, I repeated all the things I wanted to tell him in my mind and didn't open my mouth or looked at him. He shuffled close to me and placed his arm around my waist, waiting but not pressing or asking me anything.

I sighed and looked at him. “Did you ever think about going to college?”

He frowned. “Yes,” he answered simply like it was obvious. It probably was.

“Why did you decide not to go?”

He started moving his hand on my waist, stroking slowly, not answering.

“Was it because of Andro? Or money? Because if you want to go to college, you could now. We're... well, we're kind of set with my salary from the League. And, uh, the indemnities for Dad and Mom's deaths.” I swallowed and had to breathe in slowly before I could keep on talking. “And also the money from selling the house.”

Goran shook his head, slowly. “I just decided not to go, ultimately.”

I would have liked to get more details out of him, but I rarely asked Goran to expand on the things he said. I nodded. “Okay. Well. You could also stop working until you can find a day shift somewhere, so we could all live on the same schedule.”

He turned his head. “Do you want me to?”

My first instinct was to answer that, no, this wasn't about me, this was about him, and I wanted him to do whatever _he_ wanted to do. But the truth was that I did want him to work days, so I could see him in the morning and in the evening and so he could spend more time with Andro. I really wasn't all enthusiastic about the idea of seeing Andro more than he would; it seemed wrong. So I pressed my lips together and shifted my eyes away.

“Yeah, I think I'd like you to. Unless you like the evening shift?” I sighed. “I just— I know you probably really don't want to live off me, and I totally get it, but... you have more options now that we _are_ living together and you should probably at least think about it a little?”

Goran pushed himself up to lean over me and kissed me hard. He was grinning when he pulled away to lie on the bed again.

“Thanks,” he said.

I was feeling pretty good about myself when I fell asleep.

*

Goran didn't work on weekends and I realized we were officially both kind of his brother's dads when I thought, “Oh, this means we'll both be able to spend time with Andro.” I was also looking forward to it because I had gotten used to seeing Goran for hours every day after moving in with him, but now that I went to school full-time and he worked evenings, I only saw him for half an hour every morning —and very occasionally when I woke up as he came back from his nights of vigilantism.

He was lying next to me when I woke up Saturday morning and I snuggled up close to him. Touching him woke me up right away.

“What happened to your shoulder?” I asked, pushing the blanket off him to take a look at it. It was badly bruised, the skin near his collarbone purple, green, and a sickish yellow. Goran opened his eyes as I placed my hand on his shoulder and started healing him. It wasn't anything bad and didn't take much energy at all but I was annoyed that he'd gone to sleep hurt without waking me up.

“I dislocated it,” he answered, staying still. It wasn't dislocated anymore, so he'd also put it back in place by himself. “It wasn't hurting.”

“You should still wake me up when you have more than just a few scratches,” I mumbled, removing my hand. Goran's skin was back to its normal shade.

The bedroom door flew opened, and Andro barged in, stopping in his track when he saw the look on my face.

“Are you... fighting?”

I forced myself to stop frowning. “No, we're not,” I answered, smiling at him.

“What did we say about walking inside our room?” Goran asked, sitting up in our bed.

“Oops!” Andro stepped out of the room and closed the door. A second later, he was knocking loudly.

“You can come in,” Goran said, and Andro was back inside our room. “What's going on?”

“Will you come play Mario Kart with me before karate?”

“Which one of us?” I asked.

“You. So that Goran can cook breakfast.”

Goran stifled a laugh.

“Hey! I can cook fine!” I exclaimed, only partly faking my indignation.

“Yes, but you cooked every day this week. Now it's Goran's turn,” Andro said, wisely.

“All right. Give us a few minutes to get dressed,” Goran said, smiling.

Andro looked at us suspiciously before answering, “Okay, but get dressed quickly!”, and leaving us, shutting the door behind him.

I sat up straighter and tried flattening my hair which didn't really work.

“You look great,” Goran said, pecking me on the lips and standing up to put on a shirt.

“You're a bit biased.”

“Yes.”

“As long as we all know it.”

I eventually sat down in front of the TV while Andro turned on the console and told me I couldn't choose Wario because he wanted to take him, so I picked Yoshi and proceeded to lose a lot of Mario Kart races as Goran made pancakes. It took me a little while to see that Andro wasn't as concentrated on the game as he could have been. I leaned on the side and bumped our arms together.

“Hey, is something wrong?”

Andro made a face and looked behind him before whispering, “He was hurt.”

I thought about how Goran could probably hear us even if we whispered, but I kept my voice low anyway when I answered, “Yes, but that's why I'm here.”

“You weren't there before.”

“I know.” I tried not to think about this too much because, even though Goran had some amount of fast healing, he must have been hurt a lot and just dealt with it. He didn't even have the League's support, either, which could have helped. I knew he liked working alone, but it would have calmed my nerves a bit if he didn’t.

“Are you going to stay to take care of him, then?”

The question was a lot more loaded than Andro must have realized, but I didn't hesitate when I answered, “Yes.”

“Okay. That's good.”

Andro won another race and looked at me again. “Do you love my brother?”

I blushed and nearly dropped the controller on the floor. “Uh. Yes.”

He nodded. “I won't tell anyone.”

Maybe, Andro did understand the situation better than I gave him credit for.

*

During my third week of school, my cellphone rang in the middle of Calculus.

I jumped and dropped my pencil, fumbling through my bag to answer the call as fast as I could. Everyone turned to look at me and Mrs. Johnson glared, walking towards me with her hand extended.

“No cellphones allowed in class, Thom. Hand it over when you find it.”

“No— I—” There it was! I pulled it out and looked up at the teacher. “I'm really sorry,” I said and pressed the ON button, knowing full well how disrespectful that would look.

“Thom Creed,” I said in a stage whisper as if it would make the whole ordeal better.

“We think Silver Bullet is dying.” It wasn't Uberman, and I didn't waste anytime trying to figure out who was talking.

“Doesn't he have regeneration?”

“Yes. Which is why we need you right now.”

The teacher was now glaring and my classmates had their eyes fixed on me and were now silent, listening to me with way more attention than they had been listening to Calculus.

“I'm in class,” I said quickly, not knowing what I was supposed to do.

“Which school?”

“Saint-Edward High.”

“Room?”

“Uh, 209.”

There was some noise in the background, and I recognized Kevin's voice, loud and panicked.

“Thanks.” They hung up and I barely had time to turn off my phone and Kevin was there, in my class, in full Golden Boy attire, banging the door open and making sheets of paper fly away as he arrived.

“Come on!” he said, frantic.

Every single student in the class started talking loudly at the same time then, some getting up and moving decisively toward Kevin or hesitantly away. At least one student was using their phone as a camera to take pictures of Kevin. Mrs. Johnson took her attention away from us to try and control the class.

I picked up my things and stuffed everything in my backpack as fast as humanly possible, and I could tell that Kevin wanted to do it for me to save a few seconds. He was vibrating, stressed and freaked out.

I zipped my bag and turned towards him, and before I could say anything he had scooped me up and we were at Headquarters and Silver Bullet was lying on a table, obviously in pain. The top half of his uniform had been ripped away and most of his stomach and chest was covered by what looked like blood and pus, but I couldn't see any wound under it all. I'd seen many wounds and bruises in my life, and I'd never felt physically sick from the sight of blood, but this one made me want to throw up. It was because of the way the wound _felt_ , though, and not how it looked.

I didn't know what was wrong with it, and it wasn't my place to stay there and try to figure it out. I took a deep breath, stopped myself from gagging, and moved towards Silver Bullet to place one hand on his chest and one on his stomach.

My hands immediately heated up more than they had when I'd healed Dad during the summer and I felt my energy being swapped away. I removed my hand in shock.

“What's wrong?” Kevin said over my shoulder. “Thom, what does he have?”

“I don't know,” I told Kevin and put my hands back where they'd been. I was expecting the way I suddenly felt exhausted and drained and left my hands there. They were right, Silver Bullet was dying, and the wound was chewing at him, slowly spreading not just over his skin but inside his body as well. I didn't know how I knew it as usual, but I could tell that he had five minutes at most before the wound reached his vitals and started eating at his heart and lungs.

My hands hurt and I quickly started hearing my heartbeat hammering in my temples, but I didn't let go and willed for the thing to stop spreading. The spread slowed down and eventually stopped, but it was still trying to grow and I couldn't remove my hands.

“I've got him stabilized but...” I waited, feeling sweat dripping down my neck and my back. The wound had stopped growing but it wasn't healing. It felt alive. “What _is_ this?” I muttered, frustrated. “Is it a magical wound?”

Everyone around me suddenly moved all at once, talking loudly, but I couldn't concentrate on them: Silver Bullet required my complete attention.

“We're calling Mystic M,” Kevin told me a minute later, his voice hoarse. “Can you hold on until he arrives and we figure out how to deal with this?”

“I don't really have a choice, do I?” I answered, glancing at Kevin. Kevin bit his lower lip and rubbed his palms over his eyes and forehead. He didn't say anything. My head was killing me, and my legs felt weak and numb.

“Kevin— I'm going to fall over—”

“Nonono, no falling over!” He sped away and came back a second later with a stool for me to sit on. Kevin was crying, I realized, but his expression was angry and determined.

Mystic M arrived quickly and didn't talk to me, working on the situation right away. I only realized he had been casting a spell when the room went blue and yellow. Whatever magical element made the wound hard to heal was suddenly dispersed. With the amount of energy I was pushing into Silver Bullet, he healed completely in a second once the magical barrier was gone. The exhaustion took over and Kevin caught me when I fainted.

*

“Did I have a seizure?” was the first thing I asked when I woke up. I hadn't opened my eyes, and I didn't even know if there was someone in the room.

“No.” I didn't recognize the voice, so I forced myself to open my eyes. The light was bright, and it took me a few seconds before I could tell that Silver Bullet and Kevin were in the room with me.

“Oh... good... I'm trying to get my driver's license back.” I was babbling, but I thought that it was probably fine because I had just fainted and was still a bit out of it.

“Is there someone we could call to come and pick you up? You can also stay here until you feel better or have someone bring you back home.”

“Huh.” I wasn't in the best state to answer questions and make decisions. “What time is it?”

Kevin looked at the wall behind me. “Three forty.”

“Shit!” I tried sitting up but felt dizzy and fell back on the bed right away. “I need to go pick up Andro at school.”

“Andro?”

“He's in grade six. I pick him up and bring him home.”

“Okay. Is there someone we can call that can pick _him_ up, then?” asked Silver Bullet gently.

I thought about Andro's friend Matthew and how he'd gone to his place after school last week and Matthew's parents had looked like really nice people who would have brought Andro home with them if they'd had to, but I didn't know Matthew's parents' phone number or Matthew's last name.

“...No. His brother's working.” Silver Bullet didn't comment on the lack of parents; there were too many orphans in the superhero community and it was a touchy topic.

“I can go get Andro at his school and bring him here,” suggested Kevin. “And then... you should probably call Goran even if he's working. He'd like to know that you're hurt.”

“I'm not hurt.”

Kevin threw me a 'don't bullshit me' look and I cowered on the bed.

“He goes to Springwood Middle School,” I told Kevin after a few seconds. “You have a secret ID so you should probably go as Golden Boy. They'll have less issues letting you leave with Andro that way, too.”

Kevin nodded. “When does he finish school?”

“Fifteen minutes ago.”

“Their last name is Marković, right?”

I nodded.

“Okay. Call Goran.”

He left in a blur and I was alone with Silver Bullet. We looked at each other awkwardly for a while, and he eventually sat down on a chair next to my bed.

“How are you feeling, Thom?”

“I'm good. Just tired.”

“Good. That's good.” He looked down at his hands and then back at me. “Thank you. For saving me.”

“I think it was mostly Mystic M.”

Silver Bullet smiled. “He told me he thought it was mostly you when I thanked him. One of you is being modest.”

“It's probably not me.”

Silver Bullet looked down at his hands again, and I wondered what made him uncomfortable about talking to me.

“I didn't want you to join the team,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear.

“Oh.” I didn't know how I was supposed to react to that.

“The senior members met after Justice's defeat to talk about offering full memberships to Kevin's team and I was against you joining. I thought— We’re role models, Thom, you understand?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

“Kevin and I had a lot of arguments. He considers you one of his friends.”

“He's one of mine, too.”

“I know.” He sighed. “I'm willing to admit that I was wrong about you.”

Of course he was; he would probably be dead if I hadn't been on call for the League. I didn't know what this was supposed to accomplish, but all it did was upset me.

“I understand you have to call someone, so I'll leave you to that.”

“Thanks,” I answered, feeling cheated.

He left the room and I got my cellphone out of my pocket and dialled the number of Goran's cellphone. He answered quickly.

“Thom?” He sounded surprised; I never called him at work.

“I'm at the League's headquarters,” I said right away, so that he'd know not to say anything that would compromise his secret identity. He was good at making sure no one knew who he was, though, better than me. I was the one who usually needed a reminder.

“Kevin is picking up Andro and bringing him here.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No! Everything is fine. I just didn't want you to worry.”

“You realize that I am more worried now than I was a minute ago, right?” Goran said, sounding amused. He must be getting used to me if that amused him. “Do I need to figure out a way to leave work?”

“No. Call me when you're done with your shift? If I'm still here, you'll have to pass by, so Andro and I can go home.”

There were a few seconds of silence.

“You're not hurt?”

“It's just exhaustion. Apparently, trying to heal magical wounds is hard on me.”

“Okay.”

Kevin and Andro entered the room then, Andro looking more excited than I had ever seen him.

“Thom! Do you know how fast Golden Boy can run?”

“Did Kevin run at full speed with my brother in his arms?”

“Maybe not at full speed?” I squeaked in the phone.

“Oh, I think my brother's mad at you, Golden Boy,” Andro told Kevin, grinning.

“Goran doesn't scare me,” laughed Kevin.

“He should. He'd beat you in a fight,” said Andro right away.

“I doubt it. I _am_ a superhero after all.”

For a moment, I stopped breathing and worried about what Andro would answer, but then he said, “Goran would win anyway. He's a lot taller than you.” He sounded exactly like any eleven-year-old defending his big brother.

“Tell Kevin hi for me,” Goran said in my ear. “I'll see you later.”

Kevin volunteered to help Andro with his homework, but they didn't work on homework at all. Instead, he showed Andro around the headquarters, leaving me alone. I didn't mind and fell asleep again fast.

*

I was woken up by someone shaking my shoulder gently. It wasn't a superhero but rather one of the employees without a power. I didn't know his name.

“You have a visitor,” he said, smiling. “You need to give your okay before he comes in.”

“Oh. Okay.” I tried sitting up slowly. I was feeling better than earlier because I didn't get dizzy from it. “Who is it?”

“He says he's family,” the man said, sounding doubtful. He handed me something that looked like a phone with a large screen that was showing a video feed of Goran at the entrance of the building.

“Is this live?”

“Yes.”

“...Is it past eight already?”

“No,” the man said patiently, “it's four thirty.”

I should have been annoyed that Goran had left work when I'd told him not to, but instead I had butterflies in my stomach and felt elated at the thought that Goran had called us family to someone.

“Should we let him in?”

“Ah. Yes.” I handed him the phone and he left.

Goran walked into the room a few minutes later. He kissed me on the forehead and sat down in the chair next to the bed. It was weird having him in the League's headquarters when discovering his secret identity and putting an end to his vigilantism had been on the League's to-do list for nearly two years now. It stressed me out a little, but it didn't look like it bothered him, so I let it go. It wasn't as if we could start a conversation about how he maybe shouldn't be here considering he was Dark Hero in the middle of the League's headquarters after all.

“I'm glad you're here.” That reassured him that I wasn't angry at him, and he took my hand. “Even if I told you I was fine.”

“I called Kevin.”

“Did he tell you I wasn't fine?”

“No. He said you needed some rest and that I didn’t need to rush over.”

I smiled and rolled my eyes. “Come over here,” I said, pulling on his hand.

“This is a single bed.”

“We'll have to snuggle.”

“This is a single bed in what I think counts as your place of work.” Goran had a point, but it didn't stop me from being disappointed.

“Hey, what about _your_ work?”

Goran shrugged. “Tomorrow's my last day, anyway. It doesn't really matter.”

I thought I'd heard wrong, but then couldn't figure out what else Goran could have said. “Did you give your two weeks’ notice without telling me? I mean— I'm not mad, but why?”

“My boss told me he wouldn't try hiring anyone else until I really didn't show up Monday morning.”

I stayed silent, expecting more. When nothing came, I took a moment to try and make sense out of what he'd told me.

“You weren't sure if you were going to change your mind?”

He nodded once.

“And now you're sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” I squeezed his hand. “Do you know what you want to do next?”

“I'll write. For now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I want to.”

I wondered how long it had been since Goran had decided to do something because he _wanted_ to and not because he felt he had to.

“Can we sleep here?” Andro's voice peeped from behind Goran. “Golden Boy said we could stay here and meet Uberman!”

“I really didn't!” Kevin said quickly, raising his hands in front of him.

“You have school tomorrow, and I think Thom would prefer to sleep in his own bed.”

“It's not his _own_ bed,” Andro answered. “You take up at least half of it.”

Kevin covered a laugh with a sudden cough as best as he could, which wasn't much at all.

*

“Scarlett wants you to come over for dinner sometime.”

Goran had his arm under mine to help me walk, and Kevin was accompanying us and keeping an eye on Andro as we were getting to Goran's car. Usually, I would have accepted right away but there was something off in his voice.

“What’s she making you cook?”

Kevin flinched. “Remember how she was so freaking adamant that she'd never be a housewife and I better get used to cooking? Even though I was already doing that and had no problem with it? She's decided she wants to cook and all now because she's gonna be a mom.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yeah. And I can't even be sympathetic with you both because she's been kicking me out of the kitchen for a week now. So when are you free to come share my pain?”

I started thinking about it, but Goran answered before I could, “We're free every evening starting next week.”

I leaned into him even though I didn't need to and he held me close.


End file.
